


all we get is an icon

by ilgaksu



Series: as long as you're mine [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Wicked Fusion, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23759656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: Lance McClain is destined for great things.
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: as long as you're mine [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711636
Comments: 6
Kudos: 74





	all we get is an icon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ewagan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewagan/gifts).



Lance McClain is destined for great things. He knows this because he has been told so, over and over, ever since he was able to understand, the words placed in his mouth silvery and easy as a spoon. And in the same breath, doubt is sown, by the very nature of the exercise: the higher the expectation you place a boy under, the greater distance the shortfall if he does not take up the slack. And the greater distance there is to fall. The higher risk that something will be broken by the end, and something necessary at that. It’s not malicious. The application of a theoretical rule is rarely intended to be. It’s merely physics. But Lance McClain was born with magic, born into a family line for whom it is as expected as the first breath. And what is magic, if not the ability to manipulate physics - and with it, every last law of the universe? 

*

When Lance is seventeen years old, he meets the boy who is going to ruin his entire life.

Of course, he’s unaware of that yet - divining the future has never been a McClain family speciality, and even had it been, Lance is in denial. And therefore, he’s fully committed to finding Keith Kogane wholly unremarkable. In those first few moments, Lance decides Keith Kogane is - must be - is just another boy, albeit one with a weird accent and weirder clothes. Lance is seventeen, foolish and headstrong, and has never met anyone who is from beyond the City boundaries, never even seen them in close quarters. Keith - with a long fishtail of a braid slinking down the incline of his spine, the cautious, alert eyes of a big cat, the plain square neckline and brightly embroidered cuffs of a borderlands boy - Keith is a difficult thing to wrangle into sense. At first, what strikes Lance most when looking at him is the sense of something liquid. But then, Keith scowls, and it lights up something unholy in his eyes, something banked and raging. Lance catches himself thinking of the phrase _ a boy on fire  _ for a brief, absurd moment, before busying himself with better, more important, less disquieting things. 

If Keith had just stayed there - locked in that first impression, those early arguments, if his face that kept that scowl forever - 

If Keith had just stayed on the other side of that line, the neat one Lance chalked across their shared floor, instead of crawling into Lance’s head and making himself aggravating and ever-present, there until the lure of him was too great and it left Lance stranded on a bed with him on the precipice of their own futures - 

If it hadn’t been for Keith at all - 

*

_ We’re not the same kind of person, _ Lance had told him at seventeen, and that much was true. Years later, it’s even more true, the irony of it carved so hollow that to laugh about it aches. Lance has. Lance has tried. Sometimes it even helps. 

It is not after the war, but in some ways, a significant part of Lance McClain’s war is over. The Last Good Witch is dead; long live the Last Good Witch! He is pulled out of the arms of Haggar and her hordes by masked rebels, not a single witch among them but Keith’s name on their lips, and that’s enough for him to let them bundle him into the night, because when he quantifies the risk, it is the only viable option. The potential of death is always more hopeful than it as a certainty. They have been at war for three years. Lance McClain has been the Last Good Witch of the City for two and a half of those years, and he has been assisting the rebellion for two of those again. And so, there is no retreat. So it goes. So _ he _ goes. 

It is not after the war, but it has been two months since he stumbled into the rebellion headquarters, disorientated, exhausted, and heard the ringing of running footsteps. Two months since he had seen Keith rounding the corner at a full sprint, reaching out to him even when there’s too much space between them still, and Lance had realised he was shaking, shaking almost out of his skin, because it was over. The worst might be yet to come but it was over. The Last Good Witch was dead and he was alive and he had outlived his own martyrdom and it was a - 

It’s a fucking miracle. That’s what it is. 

It is not after the war, but it has been two months. In the same bed, Keith sleeps, the meagre blankets skin-warmed through, the slope of his lower lip slack and perfect. There is a knife under the pillow, bare inches from their bodies, and Lance can’t blame him. Lance can’t blame him for anything anymore, for any of it. He was destined for great things, until he wasn’t - until he was the great thing, and it was hollow, and shallow, and no way to sustain a life. What kind of magic is that? When this - the vulnerability of Keith’s closed eyelids and shallow dreaming, the fine bones of his wrist and ankle - all of this gives Lance a courage he couldn’t have comprehended at sixteen? When this boy - this infuriating, maddening boy, a boy on fire, a boy capable of burning down every last law of the universe and scattering the ashes at Lance’s feet in offering - kisses him like something out of the realm of imagination? 

Everyone in the City sees Keith as a renegade; half the rebels sees him as a saviour; who is there left in the maelstrom of stories, the great churning of war propaganda, to remember Keith might be scared? Only a handful of people. Hardly significant. Lance has to make sure it’s significant, because he has seen Keith’s eyes blaze when he says,  _ I’ll burn Haggar down for what she did to you _ , and he knows that boys on fire can burn out just as easily as they ignite the world. Lance needs to make a world worth living in. He needs to make it so Keith will always turn back, will put down the war and come back to him, because Lance needs him. It’s a simple fact that takes a lot of stitches to tether. It’s only been two months. Lance is working on it. 

When Keith opens his eyes, blinking slow and soft, cat-like in the hushed gloom of the early morning, Lance smiles. Keith makes a soft noise of confusion. 

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” Lance whispers. The endearment isn’t as heavy on his tongue as it used to be, weighted by fantasy. In reality, it’s the easiest thing in the world. It has been a long time since he was in denial. “Go. It’s fine. I promise.”

Keith believes him. He closes his eyes and slips back into dreams as easily as threading a needle. And Lance settles for what he has. He swallows down the heart in his mouth; holds his breath; holds on tight. 


End file.
